Hello all,

I just completed a dog sketch for a friend.

Please let me know what you think of 'Jewel'

Here is the original file:

... and here is the final sketch

Printed out on matte paper, the final picture looks much better than the screen.

Comments and suggestions are always welcome ;)

That's lovely!!!

Tyeise

Eric, I think that's a great look -- what technique did you use?

Scott

Thanks Scott,

From the top of my head.... here is what I did:


1. Used Photoshops Extract feature to "remove" the background from the original photo.
2. Used Channel mixer to convert the image to b & w
3. Duplicated the layer. (I believe this layer was set to overlay, but I'm not at my PC to really see :( )
4. I added noise to the image duped layer (without this step, for some reason the final results don't look to good).
5. Ran the filter angled strokes (on the duplicate layer) with some tweaking to create the desired effect.
6. Created a new layer and Posterized the entire image SLIGHTLY
7. Adjusted the opacity of all three layers to my liking

I added the coloured layer to create a more appealing print.

Apologies for any missed steps

:eek:

Regards,

EricP

Great job Eric, I can't wait to try it your technique out.

Eric:

I noticed you did an exceptionally good job of extracting the foreground. Nice job on preserving the hair detail at the edges and especially on , bringing out the detail around the left (as you look at the pic) eye, which is buried by shadows in the original.

Thanks, too, for sharing your steps. Always appreciate it when people are nice enough privide the level of detail you did.

When you say "Posterized slightly," does that mean using Image > Adjust > Posterize (or Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Posterize) or the Poster Edges filter? Do you recall "number of levels" [for Posterize] or Poster Edges settings]?

She's such a pretty dog I wanted to see if I could come up with a version that retained the color of her coat. This was done by knocking her out from the BG (not nearly as well as you did), followed by running an action ("Brad's sketch") from this collection (click HERE (http://www.retouchpro.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=2653)). I ungrouped the Levels adjustment layer so it applied to the entire image, not just a single layer.

To add a little more color, I duplicated the original BG layer, pulled it to the top of the layer stack and set the opacity to 50%.

In any event, your rendition of Jewel is very compelling. Hope you continue to post your pics and share your methods with us.

~DannyR~

Danny,

Thank you for your comments! Your rendition looks great!

Maybe this can help: I used the Layer > New Adjustment Layer > Posterize and placed it above all the other layers ... I believe the "number" I used was 4 (depending on the size of your image, you may want to experiment a bit with that number), but I also lowered the overall opacity of that layer.

I hope this helps.... The result I came up with was made through many hours of experimenting, and it happened to be the most simple of the 'tests'.

Enjoy ;)

very nice technique! you did a wonderful job on it.

my only nitpicky little comment would be to remove the glare from the snow from the bottom of her eyes. i did a little work very quickly with the dodge and burn tools and it made a pretty dramatic difference.

other than that teeny detail it's a great sketch!